CHICAGO—If there is one key thing on which the president of
the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the program chair for
the AACR Annual Meeting 2012 wholeheartedly agree, it's that they suffer from
no shortage of material.

In fact, it's safe to say that if temporary cloning were
possible, they'd have offered that as a service so you could attend every last
session.

"What is particularly challenging is the scope of the
science. AACR is all things to all people, and we have to cover the most
exciting activities over a very wide range of disciplines," says AACR's
president, Dr. Judy E. Garber, who is director of the Center for Cancer
Genetics and Prevention at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a professor of
medicine at Harvard Medical School. "We end up with a meeting where you would
literally like to go to every session, but you just can't."

That challenge isn't unique to AACR as an organization or to
its annual meeting specifically, notes Dr. Benjamin G. Neel, the program
committee chairperson for the AACR Annual Meeting 2012 and director of the Ontario
Cancer Institute, as well as a senior scientist in the institute's Division of
Stem Cell and Developmental Biology. But in oncology, he says, the level of
that challenge is stepped up considerably and that is "thanks to the wisdom and
hard work of generations of people worldwide who have supported cancer research
and the knowledge gained in cancer biology and now translational cancer
medicine."

The huge explosion in cancer knowledge over just the past
decade, Neel says, makes planning an event like this a process that is both
encouraging and intimidating, even with a venue as big as Chicago's McCormick
Place, where the event will be held March 31 to April 4.

"We're a very small group of people taking an extraordinary
amount of useful information and trying to figure out just what to put into the
annual meeting so that we get to people what they really need, because there is
no way to fit all of it into a few days," he says. "One of the things that
struck me as I got together with Judy in January to go over where we were at
with the meeting preparations is that there are so many areas of cancer
research and treatment that I don't normally pay attention to, and now I'm
looking forward to hearing all of it. But, you know, there is no way possible
that any human can go to all of these sessions. That's simultaneously bracing,
exciting and disappointing to me."

If nothing else, Neel says, it's a great reason for himself
and other attendees to obtain the webcasts of the meeting, "so that we can
not only pick the sessions that we most need or want to attend in person but
then also stay up late and spend another couple weeks after the meeting going
over the things we couldn't see firsthand."

Accommodating new knowledge and keeping up with the needs of
AACR members and others who attend the meeting has meant some changes this
year, some of them entirely new features in the program.

"One of the big things we did was to reorganize the meeting
a bit to add more sessions," Garber says. "We've had sessions on current
concept and controversies in organ site research in the past, but there have
been a lot of emerging themes in targeted therapies and diagnosis in the past
several years, so we added an entire program on current concepts and
controversies in therapeutics, diagnostics and prevention as well."

Also, AACR chose this year's meeting to pay special
attention to the field of immune therapy in cancer. "We have an entire major
symposium on immune therapy and I think that's very timely because the first
two immune-based approaches for cancer were approved in the past year," Neel
notes. "Also, one of the things we really wanted to emphasize is the need to
begin to rationally combine targeted drug therapies and immune-based therapies
to get to increased survival rates and more durable cures."

Moreover, there are more presentations dealing with
pediatric cancers this year and an entire major symposium—the AACR/ASCO
Presidential Symposium—dedicated to new insights in pediatric oncology.

Another area of special attention this year, Garber and Neel
say, are talks dealing with regulatory science issues.

"One of the newest tracks at the meeting is on regulatory
science, something we thought was important with various groups working with
the FDA on all these targeted therapies and biomarkers to ensure processes are
clearer, safer and more productive from the industry and inventory points of
view so that they can positively impact large groups of people," Garber says.

Neel anticipates that those who attend the 2012 AACR meeting
will be pleased with the mix of speakers. He acknowledges that a frequent
comment made by attendees of past events has been the perception that "the same
old people are speaking all of the time." But Neel says there is a good mix of
old faces and new ones this year. He also says that the 2012 meeting may very
well have the largest number of younger investigators coming to the meeting for
the first time.

"We've got a range of what has been done as well as what is
being done and what will be done in the future," he says. "This is a very large
meeting and it really runs the gamut from basic discovery-based lab findings to
therapeutics in the clinic."

Neel says the AACR is trending ahead of last year's
registration numbers so far, but he notes there is no way to know whether they
will meet or surpass last year's attendance until after the convention is
underway, given that there will be on-site registration.

In any case, Garber encourages cancer researchers to attend
for the sake of doing better science—if not this year, then in the future.

"This is the largest conference for cancer scientists
in the world. Communication among different disciplines has really changed, and
with translational medicine and the like, people have come to realize that you
cannot work in your own little bubble anymore," she says. "Basic scientists,
clinical scientists and translational scientists have to work together for
cancer research to move forward and go into the clinic, because they're all
tied together more and more as greater progress is made. This annual meeting is
a great opportunity to get outside of your area a bit and find out what new
research touches upon your own discipline and can enhance your own work. The
annual meeting is really the cross-fertilization center and a really efficient
way to pick up new knowledge and make important personal connections with
people in your own areas and other areas of cancer research."

(More show-related content is below, and for even more pre-show coverage, including photos of Chicago, what to do there, and additional AACR news, you can click here to open up that additional material in a new browser window)

(Note: All photos on this web page are from the AACR Annual Meeting 2011)

Honoring scientific
achievement

PHILADELPHIA—Since 1961, the AACR has presented more than
278 prizes, awards and lectureships to recognize the scientific achievements of
scientists and physicians who collectively have made significant contributions
to the understanding, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of cancer. Following
are the awards and lectureships to be presented at the AACR Annual Meeting
2012:

AACR Award for
Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research—Honors an individual who has made
significant fundamental contributions to cancer research, either through a
single scientific discovery or a body of work.

AACR Princess
Takamatsu Memorial Lectureship—Recognizes an individual scientist whose
novel and significant work has had or may have a far-reaching impact on the
detection, diagnosis, treatment or prevention of cancer and who embodies the
dedication of the princess to multinational collaborations.

AACR Team Science
Award—Acknowledges and catalyzes the growing importance of
interdisciplinary teams to the understanding of cancer and/or the translation
of research discoveries into clinical cancer applications.

Pezcoller
Foundation-AACR International Award for Cancer Research—Given to a
scientist of international renown who has made a major scientific discovery in
basic cancer research or who has made significant contributions to
translational cancer research.

AACR-American Cancer
Society Award for Research Excellence in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention—Recognizes
outstanding research accomplishments in cancer epidemiology, biomarkers and
prevention.

AACR Award for
Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research—Intended to give recognition to
a young investigator (not more than 40 years of age) on the basis of
meritorious achievement in cancer research.

AACR Award for
Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry in Cancer Research—Given for
outstanding, novel and significant chemistry research that has led to important
contributions to the fields of basic cancer research, translational cancer
research, cancer diagnosis, the prevention of cancer or the treatment of
patients with cancer.

AACR Richard and
Hinda Rosenthal Memorial Award—Honors and provides incentive to
investigators relatively early in their careers (not more than 50 years of age)
who are engaged in the practice of medicine and who reside in the Americas, for
research that has made, or promises to soon make, a notable contribution to
improved clinical care in the field of cancer.

AACR-Minorities in
Cancer Research Jane Cooke Wright Lectureship—Awarded to an outstanding
scientist who has made meritorious contributions to the field of cancer
research and who has, through leadership or by example, furthered the
advancement of minority investigators in cancer research.

AACR-Women in Cancer
Research Charlotte Friend Memorial Lectureship—Provided to an outstanding
scientist who has made meritorious contributions to the field of cancer
research and who has, through leadership or by example, furthered the
advancement of women in science.

AACR-Irving Weinstein
Foundation Distinguished Lectureship—Intended to recognize and present
outstanding science that has the potential to inspire new thinking and
perspectives on the etiology, progression and prevention of cancer.

Working for a living

CHICAGO—Building on the success of previous AACR Cancer and
Biomedical Research Career Fairs, the 2012 Career Fair at the AACR Annual
Meeting 2012 is intended to provide many opportunities for both job seekers and
employers. This annual event brings job seekers with highly specialized
scientific skills—such as basic and translational researchers, clinicians and
epidemiologists—together with employers representing academia, cancer centers,
government and industry.

The research career fair will be held on Saturday, March 31,
and some 7,500 scientists are expected to attend the event.

The AACR also wants to draw attention to its "improved
and unique career and job posting center," the AACR CancerCareers.Org Center.
"As an employer, you will have the opportunity to bring your scientific job
openings to the attention of thousands of the world's most brilliant minds in
various scientific fields such as basic, translational, epidemiologic and
behavioral research," AACR notes. "As a cancer biomedical researcher, you will
have the ability to utilize AACR's CancerCareers.Org Center in your search for
scientific career opportunities."